“Yesterday’s” Comic> Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #12

The role of April O’Neil will be played by Cher.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #11

Mirage Studios (June, 1987)

“True Stories”

WRITERS/ARTIST: Kevin Eastman & Peter Laird

LETTERER: Steve Lavigne

Arriving at the farm of Casey’s late grandmother (or he just left the place outright, one of the two), our heroes try to settle in and rest. April finds a journal and writes about the next few months, as each Turtle tries to recover in his own way. Leo hunts alone, trying to get his skill back. Michaelangelo has lost his jokey spirit and trains alone. Raphael plays watch guard and works on a truck with Casey, which ends up damaging one of the many projects Donatello has been working on around the farm. After April, who has been suffering from nightmares of the Foot’s attack on her apartment and the destruction of her father’s store, falls into a frozen lake, Leo saves her. Splinter decides it’s time for the four brothers to start training together again, and by the start of Spring it seems they’re finally starting to find themselves again, while April has found a new family.

What they got right: After the chaos of the last two stories our heroes needed time to recoup. The story summarizes events through April’s journal writing, which allows the majority of the recovery to go by in one issue (plus these issues are around 30 pages instead of the usual 24–good thing with all the splash pages and double-page spreads in this series) without feeling rushed. Until the Turtles start training together there isn’t much to discuss. There’s no adventure because they’re recovering from their defeat and you do get a sense of what each of our heroes are doing to deal with it.

What they got wrong: Except for Casey and Spinter. Splinter may be the mentor and would have the least amount of trauma among the heroes but this has to have affected him somehow. We don’t know what he’s been doing and doesn’t even come up until he has to treat April for falling in the water. Casey provided the hideout (Northampton, Massachusetts, where Eastman and Laird had been living at this point in their lives) and we see him working on (and wrecking) an old truck with Raphael but that’s it. This was his first encounter with the Foot but he at least could be worried about his new friends as he only knew Raphael at this point and the others apparently hadn’t been told about him.

What I think overall: This was the story they really needed, and not just to catch comic time with actual time due to delays and stuff. After the defeat they received the cast seriously needed this, and we’ll be spending a few issues here before returning to New York City. These events were also part of the first live-action movie (with some characters switched around as Raphael was the one injured there and was still recovering during most of this part of the story) and the 2003 cartoon. (I think IDW also reused these events in their continuity.) It’s to the story’s benefit.